#dracula beyond stoker

[see-arcane]

I hope they accept any of yours but especially the Bad Ending partially because The People need to open their eyes on how they've been sleeping on his extremes

Sending this ^^^ vision to The People to let them know what they've been robbed of in the jillion Dracula Bad Ending where it always amounts to DRACULA WAS 2 COOL AND AWESOME AND HE TRICKED YOU ALL LOLLL

What about this, huh? What if the holiest love did some murder about it, huh?? What if???

[stragglewort]

So now that Dracula Daily is starting again I want to tell a little story. When the first emails were rolling out for it last year, I too was dealing with a Dracula of my own. That being a magazine, Dracula Beyond Stoker, that I had submitted a story to.

I need you all to understand the horrors. The terrors. The absolute situation I went through. For MONTHS I would get emails from Dracula Daily while also waiting for a response from the publisher, Dracula Beyond Stoker, but in the preview I'd just see "Dracula". So I would get all worried and excited, only for it to be my good friend John or like

Y'know

Not my publisher.

So you can imagine how I felt when I saw Drac in my emails, went "O,h it's just John again." And MISSED THE ACCEPTANCE EMAIL FROM MY PUBLISHER FOR LIKE A FULL DAY

Abywho I got paid to write gay Dracula fanfic about our Good Friend, it's called Friendship and Hospitality in Issue One of DBS. I hope you all like it.

[mossworth]

Oh! Yeah, mine was the second story in the first issue of Dracula Beyond Stoker Magazine. "Friendship and Hospitality". It's in there with a few other fiction stories, some poetry and an essay all centered around Dracula. Personally, my absolute favorite story from my issue was Death of an Adversary by Jill Protokowicz. If you read none of it, mine included, I urge you to read Jill's!

I think you can buy a copy off dbspress.com (the publisher's website) or do what I did and request/see if there's a copy at your local library!

This was not the Dracula lore drop I was expecting today.

[evydraws]

Dracula prints and the original acrylic painting (with brushes and paint tubes for size)

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

I was toying with the idea of ranking adaptations based on how book accurate they are.

But honestly, more than half the entries would come down to "this is not trying to be the book" because a lot of the media that is based on the book is loosely based on it. Especially things that just want to have a vampire and Van Helsing.

A remarkable amount of Dracula media simply isn't about Dracula the book.

[thethirdromana]

More travels with Jonathan Harker, in pictures

Here's the route that Jonathan travels by the public coach today:

I've tried to find copyright-free photos from the actual route, but I've not had much success. So this tour is going to be a lot more vibes-based than reflective of the actual sights out of the stagecoach window. Think of it like Jonathan's Transylvanian Pinterest board.

(Scenery photos are all of Transylvania, assuming I can trust the sites where I found them, but not necessarily the right time of year or the right bit of Transylvania. It's a big place.)

"Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road."

"There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals."

"In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame."

"Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly."

"As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink."

"By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves."

"Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys."

And a bonus: Bran Castle is marked as 'Dracula's Castle' despite being even further away from the locations in the book than most of my vibes-based photography choices. It also doesn't resemble Bram Stoker's descriptions of the castle.

But more importantly, it looks really cool. So here it is:

[mossworth]

If one more Draculadaptation looks me dead in the eye and says with a straight face that Wilhelmina "I Was Given A Gun And Sent Away Because If I Were Allowed To Murder Count Dracula With My Bare Hands It Would've Been Too Violent For The People Around Me To Handle I Hate Him With Every Fiber Of My Being He Traumatized My Husband And Killed My Best Friend, Van Helsing Only Went Into The Castle Alone Because If I Was There It Would've Burst Into Flames From My Hatred Alone Also The Matches In My Pocket And Completely Intentional Act Of Arson I've Been Planning Since Jonathan Came Home From Budapest" Harkrer fell desperately in love with Dracula I'm going to scream

I’m not bitter

[dathen]

For new readers wondering when we’ll get the iconic scene of Dracula sensually drinking from Lucy or carrying her bridal-style: we won’t. It doesn’t exist. The most contact we see is a shadow standing behind her or a large bird at the window. The book doesn’t sexualize Lucy and Dracula’s encounters at all (ironically, in contrast to his encounters with Jonathan).

We know he is feeding on her—like a leech, like an infection, but everything beyond that is in the mind of the beholder. She’s a woman and a victim, therefore Stoker must be punishing her for her sexuality, therefore she must be responsible for her own pain, therefore we gotta make it Hot.

[savagewildnerness]

Immortal, bloodthirsty creatures that feed on humans - they have sharp fangs and a hatred for sunlight and garlic.

Vampires might not be the hero you typically root for, but they have transfixed us for centuries.

The first short story about the monster written in the English language was John Polidori's The Vampyre in 1819.

More followed, with Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1897 inspiring F.W. Murnau's silent film Nosferatu in 1922. This is now being remade by Robert Eggers and is set to be released in the UK in 2025, starring Bill Skarsgård, Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult.

But what's driving our hunger for vampire stories?

For writer and actor Mark Gatiss, his fascination with vampires started early. The co-writer of BBC drama series Sherlock and Dracula has been a "horror obsessive" for as long as he can remember.

Gatiss went on from a childhood love of scary stories to star as Dracula in an audio production, made a documentary on the monster as well as a 2020 BBC series, which sees the Count (played by Claes Bang) venture to London.

He says the opportunity to bring Stoker's iconic vampire to life felt "too good to be true".

"Like Sherlock Holmes, it's an imperishable myth and, really, if anyone gives you the chance to have a go at it - you have to do it," he explains.

Gatiss explains an image of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes "silhouetted against a doorway when he comes back from the dead with his collar up" helped spark the 2020 Dracula series with Claes Bang

Rolin Jones is an executive producer and a writer on the TV adaptation of Interview with the Vampire, based on Anne Rice's collection of novels.

The series, available on BBC iPlayer, follows vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (played by Jacob Anderson) who shares the story of his life and relationship with Lestat de Lioncourt (played by Sam Reid) with a journalist.

He explains stories about the vampires "come back over and over again" because they "get in your bones and haunt you," with many raising questions of immortality, death and love.

The modern popularity of the figures can be seen on social media with #vampire having 2.7 million posts on TikTok.

Jones adds that each day he will see more people tattooing the characters' faces on their body, explaining "this is a rabid fan base".

"They're really tense and complex characters", Jones says

'Scared me to death'

While the characteristics of fictional vampires have changed throughout history - some burn to a crisp in the sunlight, others have famously sparkly skin - they have one thing in common: immortality.

Dr Sam George - an associate professor at the University of Hertfordshire who taught students about vampires in fiction - explains that part of the reason the monster endures is because they "get us to think about the big questions that concern us, ideas about ageing" as well as "what happens beyond the grave".

She adds that "the vampire's always been linked very strongly with disease, with contagion," adding that if we look back in history we can see that our interest in the immortal monster seems to pique around times of mass disease.

"When the first fictional vampire appeared in 1819, there was a strong link with tuberculosis," she says.

"Nosferatu is made to actually look like plague rats," Dr George explains

She adds that F.W. Murnau's silent film Nosferatu in 1922, centring on a character famous for the plagued rats he brought in his wake, came shortly after the Spanish influenza pandemic.

The academic adds that this is "really important to why vampires are so popular and on trend now, when you think of Nosferatu and its link to the plague, post Covid we're very interested in the vampire as contagion."

Executive producer Jones adds that a key point of interest for him lies in working out why vampires want to keep living. "You take mortality out of any drama, and it's quite interesting," he says.

Jones adds that Ms Rice herself wrote the novel after losing her daughter and that this sense of "grief and mourning" is "exceptionally articulated" in the book.

'They seduce you'

"There's this allure to them," Jones says of vampires - like Assad Zaman, who plays the vampire Armand and Jacob Anderson, who plays Louis de Pointe du Lac

While vampires may let us play out our fears about mortality and death, Jones adds that there is something else that draws us to the fanged figures.

"They're the sexiest, the most sensual of monsters," he says. "They seduce you."

Jones adds that when he first picked up the novel Interview with the Vampire, "it seemed to me what I was reading was this really repressed and really messy love story."

Dr George agrees, explaining "vampires have gotten younger and better looking over the years" and notes the difference between Nosferatu and Twilight's Edward Cullen (played by Robert Pattinson).

The academic adds there has been "a shift" in the way people read vampire fiction, explaining there has been a lot of interest in the topic of sexuality and vampires, like the "queer family" presented in Ms Rice's novel. 

The combination of love and immortality, Dr George says, is also seen in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula, which ran with the tagline "love never dies".

For Dr George, the "sense that the vampire can address a number of questions all at once," from death to love is the reason it stays with us today.

This article made me curious (I haven't put combination of some/all as an option as 100% would vote for it, as of course it isn't just one thing... so I ask the *most* significant thing for you)...

Edit to add that this is very difficult even for me to answer and I created the poll. Now, I'd say existential questions would be my top answer, but when I first read the books, it was the exploration of the outsider/difference I think for me, so perhaps that's the truest answer?

[see-arcane]

If you are trying your hand on more than one Jonathan 1500-5000 word stories, will you end up submitting one and then doing something else with the rest?

The site says it accepts simultaneous submissions so I'm going to go ahead and send a little batch of them. Whatever doesn't get accepted I'll likely reserve them for my Substack c:

Also go check out their page! They've got a Mina anthology opening for submissions too!

From their site:

Issue 7: Mina Harker (To Be Published November, 2025) Mina is teacher, a wife, and the heart and the hero of the novel. Her spirit and intelligence keep her resilient even when darkness closes in. But who is Mina beneath the surface? Did her experiences leave her haunted? How did her connection to Dracula affect her view of the world or her family? Whether it’s before, during, or after the events of the novel, let’s explore her strength, her struggles, and her secrets. Submissions open May 1, 2025-June 30, 2025. Submissions received earlier will be read and considered but will not be responded to until the window opens.

[see-arcane]

HELLO!????!!?!!?!?

Dracula lovers, this may be of interest to you: Dracula Beyond Stoker Press, which specialized in publishing all things Dracula, including short stories, will have an open call for short stories about our friend Jonathan.

Starting Nov. 1st and ending December 31st, the Jonathan Harker Anthology Open Call starts soon! Wordcount 1500-5000. AND accepted pieces will be paid (55 dollars).

[graciereadshannigram]

hey fam, welcome to the May 2024 roundup of the best hannigram fics i've read this past month! i read several million words worth of fics, and these were the cream of the crop. i also managed to rewatch the show for the fifth time!! (unemployment has its perks lmao)

as a reminder: the ingredients for a five star rating typically (but not always!!) include some combination of a.) believable characterizations of both Hannibal and Will, b.) compelling plot and/or character arcs, and c.) high quality smut.

that being said, my judgment of the aforementioned ingredients is powered almost exclusively by vibes. as such, it is incredibly subjective.

you can find past rec lists below:

February March April

and if you have any recs of your own for me, PLEASE SHARE.

anyway, in no particular order, let's go!

~

Overcoming by purefoysgirl

Word Count: 547.5k Summary: A Victorian A/B/O romance in which Hannibal Lecter is the future Duke of Westvale who has been away at war for the past ten years. His Grandfather has made good on a contract made shortly after Hannibal's birth to procure him a wife. It was supposed to be easy. Naturally, with the Omega, Will, given in the place of his twin sister, it is anything but, because if there is one thing Hannibal Lecter despises, it's Omegas.

This fic had me holding back tears when it ended (after sobbing a couple different times). This was... incredible. What a fucking UNDERTAKING this author committed to, and despite this being a doorstopper of a fic, the plot did not miss a single beat. Just... wow. For the love of god, please read this.

Falls the Shadow by littlesystems

Word Count: 72.4k Summary: "You're a psychiatrist," Will says. "Between your personal and professional lives you must have met thousands of people, you must know dozens of different flavors of pathology. Do you know anyone who would take me as I am? Who would be able to love me," he gestures in a sweeping motion, from his messy hair to his stained knee, "just as I am?" "I do." Bedelia's words shock Will into stillness. “Really?” AKA an AU where Bedelia is Will’s psychiatrist instead of Hannibal, Will makes a series of increasingly questionable life choices, and no one should ever take Bedelia’s advice. Ever.

GIMME MORE STARSSSSSSSS. Bedelia as Will's psychiatrist was brilliant, holy shit. And Will understanding Hannibal and completely accepting him? This is something I see so rarely done in fics. Will always makes him be a lot less manipulative, or at least goes through heavy angst over it. But in this? Will was immediately endeared because that's just who Hannibal is.

Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL by DBMars

Word Count: 586.7k Summary: Love Never Dies. "I have crossed oceans of time to find you." Hannibal + Bram Stoker's Dracula + the classic novel = a new version of the seductive vampire legend. Count Hannibal Lecter loses the thing most precious to him -- the love of his life. God is beyond measure in wanton malice, and matchless in his irony. And so Hannibal renounces God, and becomes an immortal monster that feeds on the blood of the living. 400 years after losing his beloved, Count Lecter meets a man who looks exactly like the husband he lost -- reborn and returned. But who could learn to love a monster?

@dbmars you are a fucking genius. I am honestly still processing and figuring out how to communicate just how amazing this fic was. Do yourself a favor and go read it NOW.

the book of jonah by zipegs

Word Count: 18.1k Summary: A sudden breath of hot wind presses through the trees. For a moment, it feels fresh, alive, and then the dust—the pollen—comes along with it, a parasite hitched on the back of the breeze. Will is ravenous. --- After the fall, Will and Hannibal sojourn in a remote, decrepit cabin in South America while they await Chiyoh’s return. But something here is afflicting them, and it’s only getting worse.

Okay, bear with me. THIS WAS FUCKING AMAZING. I haven't felt this way after consuming a piece of media since I watched Guillermo del Toro's The Autopsy episode. Psychological horror mixed with body horror mixed with smut??? I guess that does it for me. I literally can't stop thinking about this fic. It's been two weeks and I am STILL thinking about it.

Wrong by HotMolasses (@snazzymolasses here on tumblr)

Word Count: 4.2k Summary: Will roughly rubbed his arm across his mouth again, trying to rub it off. Rub off the scent of Alana, after they’d kissed. After she’d kissed him. Or he’d kissed her? It was mutual. Until it wasn’t. Until Will breathed in her scent, so familiar, so Alpha, so…wrong. He’d pulled back forcibly, unable to hide the expression of revulsion on his face. “I…I need to go.” he said, sweeping his coat off the back of a chair on his way towards the door. “Lock up when you leave.” The weather was crap, and it probably wasn’t smart to drive in the snow while he was in pre-heat, but Will didn’t know what else to do. He needed to figure this out, he needed to talk to the only person who understood him. He needed to talk to Hannibal.

So ummmmmmm what do I need to do to turn this into like a whole AU?? As always, this was a total home run. Every single bit of it was perfect.

as soft, as wide as air by BlackKnightSatellite

Word Count: 193.9k Summary: After surviving the fall, Will finds he has far fewer hesitations about joining Hannibal than he would have guessed. Character death, but not Will or Hannibal.

Well shit. I read this immediately after a full rewatch of the show (in four days no less) and THIS is my new season 4 canon. It's brilliant and actually reads like a proper season would. And I love how it gives all the characters a concluded story line. Aside from Will and Hannibal. I also loved how much this explored Will's instability and how his mental state would be affected after he finally slung off all the guilt and allowed himself to fully enjoy killing. All around very good.

The Dispersal Method by @victorineb

Word Count: 16.9k Summary: It’s a normal fall day in the forest for Will Graham. Dead body in front of him, cannibal psychiatrist behind him, the usual. Then Will brushes against the wrong flower, and suddenly neither he nor Hannibal can keep their hands off each other. Now, Will must navigate his way out of the crime scene and Jack’s scrutiny while also trying not to jump Hannibal’s bones at every opportunity. Well, one out of three ain’t bad. Set nebulously in s2, post-Will's release from the BSHCI. Will’s a conflicted honeypot, Hannibal’s a (not-so) secretly-besotted asshole, and nobody has brought enough lube.

THIS IS THE BEST SEX POLLEN I'VE EVER READ. Seriously. The BEST out of pretty much any fandom (at least so far).

Between the Shadow and the Soul by raiast

Word Count: 48.7k Summary: When Will decides to stop taking his suppressants neither he nor Hannibal can deny the attraction between them. After nearly a decade of running from his biology, Will is faced with his primitive Omega urges full force. As if navigating his hormones wasn't enough, there is a killer at large with a very specific motive that seems to only be targeting preteen boys.

This might be my new favorite ABO fic? And one of the better case fics out there.

Sleepover by EarthsickWithoutYou

Word Count: 70k Summary: Set in Season 1, after "Fromage." Will is still confused about his kiss with Alana and seeks romantic advice on how to date and be more "smooth" from Hannibal. Little does he know that Hannibal is madly, passionately obsessed with him, and desperately jealous. Needless to say, Dr. Lecter is all too happy to teach Will everything he knows about love and dating.

This was pretty fluffy, tender, and fun, and it was exactly what I needed after finishing a heavier fic

Alana Finds Out by @victorineb

Word Count: 32.1k Summary: A series of one-shots in which Alana Bloom discovers, in the midst of various tropes, that her boyfriend Hannibal Lecter's feelings for Will Graham run far deeper than friendship. Basically a chance for Alana to shout at the pair of emotionally-repressed idiots whilst still indulging in much Hannigram loveliness.

Oh I loved all of this. This scratched that itch in my brain that loves when Alana realizes that Hannibal has wanted Will all along. And some of these one-shots are genuinely hysterical. Love.

Doctor's Orders by JSinister32

Word Count: 29.2k Summary: “He’s dead on his feet, Jack. I do not understand how you allowed him to come when he’s so obviously ill. There have been too many hours in service of your needs, so many that it seems to have affected any sleep that he may have gotten over the past few weeks. From what you and I have discussed, he has a difficult time shutting his mind down under the best of circumstances and this case today has clearly gotten to him.” The doctor stepped closer to the profiler, peering into his eyes as Will tried to focus. “Will? Can you hear me?” Will Graham has never been particularly good at taking care of himself. When he comes down with a severe cold while working on a string of murders, the new psychiatrist on retainer, Doctor Hannibal Lecter, offers to care for him. Will he be able to keep his feelings in check while Hannibal is in his home? Hannibal Lecter can't get the profiler working for the Violent Crimes unit out of his mind. When given the opportunity to care for him when he's ill, will his feelings for the other man come to light?

TENDER. I want like 70k more words of this. Especially Hannibal putting Jack in his place. Especially Hannibal washing Will's hair. Mmm. There's just something so good about Will letting Hannibal take care of him.

The First Condition of Immortality is Death by OneHandedBooks

Word Count: 92.5k Summary: Hannibal’s heart stopped for the first time after he’d dragged himself and Will out of the frigid ocean onto the rocky shore at the bottom of the bluff.

Oh this was GOOD. Very tender, good characterizations, and loved how Will's hallucinations were portrayed. This was just all a really good exploration of how their relationship could have progressed. This author also is incredibly good at showing the scenes in a way that I could watch them unfold in my head. This felt like a crystal clear movie.

What Do The Dead Know? by OneHandedBooks

Word Count: 7.6k Summary: He looks up at her, haloed by the sun. She could be anyone. No one. St. Abigail, patron of lilies and last chances. AU: What if Will joined Hannibal willingly after the Uffizi Gallery and they shared a few tense weeks in the world before Mason's men finally ran them down? In which Will writes, hallucinates, and succumbs to the dark side and Hannibal is a manipulative, brainwashing, bastard.

cw: Abigail/Will. But does it really count if it's a dream sequence? Regardless, this was something else, off the charts, big fan. The author NAILED the hallucinatory vibe that made this entire fic work so so well. Also, just Will working through his grief for Abigail this way made it that much more intense.

chimera of the chapel by bleakmidwinter

Word Count: 211.5k Summary: When Will Graham wakes up from a coma three months after the fall, Jack reveals that Hannibal Lecter didn't survive. Outside the realm of Hannibal's influence, Will decides to discover the full truth behind the world's sudden and seeming falsehood. Everybody seems to hold their own opinion on Hannibal's fate, but Will knows better than anyone that trust and honesty are as elusive as death.

The "presumed dead" trope might just be my new obsession. I adored this fic so much, the plot was incredible, the development of their relationship was spot on, and there were just some very tender moments.

wear my silence like a mask by bleakmidwinter

Word Count: 32.k Summary: After running into Hannibal at a Bass Pro Shop, Will is invited to a Masquerade Ball at his estate. Jack encourages him to attend for an opportunity to catch the Ripper. Extenuating circumstances tempt Will down an even graver path; Romance with the Ripper.

Three words: masked anonymous sex. That's all.

The Voices and the Shadows by darlinghogwarts, MaddyHughes

Word Count: 114.6k Summary: “The Chesapeake Ripper? The serial killer? That's a grisly thing to find at the bottom of a drink. Most people say oblivion ...or possibly sex.” Hannibal sips his wine again. “Why are you thinking about a murderer on your birthday, Will? Is it part of your degree?” “He is a part of my degree by my own choice. My supervisor didn’t approve, but…” He sighs. “I insisted.” AU where Will—a Masters student studying the Chesapeake Ripper—gets drunk on his birthday and meets an intriguing man at the bar.

Man, I wish I had had Hannibal as my thesis supervisor in grad school, hot damn. (Mine was pretty much too busy to help with anything, ended up doing it all myself – would not recommend.) This was was damn near perfect. I needed some good old fashioned angst. With a good and fluffy ending. This was a good AU!

Chasing Thoroughbreds by HigherMagic

Word Count: 42.8k Summary: After the fall, Chiyoh rescues Will and Hannibal and takes them to the Lecter home in Lithuania. When Hannibal wakes up, his memories of everything - Will, being the Ripper, everything since Mischa's death - are gone. Will's only problem with that is that killing Hannibal won't be nearly as satisfying if he doesn't understand why. Wrestling with his own feelings, or what's left in the tattered mess of them after the fight with Dolarhyde, Will stays, hoping that Hannibal will recover and give him the opportunity he's waiting for. But there are others who remember what Hannibal did, all those years ago, and they have their own bone to pick.

Ugh pretty sure I love almost everything HigherMagic writes and this did not disappoint. This was fantastic. I was absolutely captivated by Will's development through this and Hannibal was just as good.

Volto Larva by TreacleA

Word Count: 39k Summary: Will is having trouble unwinding after work. Hannibal helpfully suggests somewhere that may assist with that, with absolutely no ulterior motive whatsoever.

So ummmm I'm still blushing (in the best way) over parts of this fic because FUCK this is scorching. Anyway. That's all I've got to say LOL.

[immediatebreakfast]

Now that the bloofer lady is awake, and on the hunt already despite being a few days old, it's time to not only talk about what thy vampire represents, but also what do the victim of the vampire mean in the narrative.

So, the question is, why does Lucy as the bloofer lady drinks from children specifically? We have seen vampires prefer human adults to feed on, and with the case of Dracula and the Weird Sisters the use of babies seem to be their last resource in a heavily guarded country side. For this there are two explanations in the narrative, one watsonian held by Lucy's characterization and her themes as a being trapped inbetween youth and adulthood, and one doylist based on Bram Stoker's prejudice plus victorian england prejudice against certain groups of people that were seen as undesirables by large society.

In the doylist manner we need to see how the Count, the Weird Sisters, and now the Bloofer lady are portrayed through the british narrative (despite Bram Stoker being irish). They are described as "dangerous" and "sensual" with hard descriptions on their faces, and with quite the emphasis on the horrors they commit against children in particular. This is not to say that their actions are horrifying because they are, but seeing that the more emphasised target is kids, one has to look beyond what is in the text to see the underlined intentions with it.

And blood libel is the answer from common folklore, and the aceptable target to refer to. The vampire represents the Other, the evil yet exotic east, and the anxiety around the antisemitic caricature of the anti christian jewish person coming to polute england and use white christian children' blood in their evil unknown jewish rituals. Which is why Lucy, now as the bloofer lady, starts attacking the children first, as a symbol to declare her as a new "beast of the night", and to underline how now she is away from god's light just like victorians thought their jewish communities were. Acceptable targets turned into the Other representing the monster that affirmed the already held bigotry of the victorians.

In the watsonian manner, Lucy died neither as a child nor a proper adult. Never entering adult society as she was infantilized by everyone around until her death, yet wanting to shed the remains of child like innocence from her life. This limbo that makes Lucy's existance as a vampire into an uncanny presence of the night which gives us why she hasn't attacked any adults. It's not that Lucy can't attack adults, is that for her is far easier to lure children since she is the poster image of the kind of the "not adult" girl that children may be curious about, and easier to trust.

Lucy is described as a the perfect victorian girl (not counting her inner turmoil around her whole life), so she probably already knows how to entertain children since the expectation of motherhood was already upon her. The bloofer may not remember who she was before being, but the manners taught to her may still be floating inside her head, instructing her what to do after being seen by a child. Act like a sisterly figure, play with them, ask them to follow you (after all children have to obey) on a walk, be pleasant but not condescending, then bite and feed.

With the one thing in the narrative that indicates that Bloofer Lucy still deserves salvation is the fact that she leaves the children alive, and relatively unharmed save the bite wounds on their necks.

[thegoatsongs]

Though critics generally read Lucy as a frivolous naif, there is far more to her than the sweetness her beaux enthuse over. (26) Her nerve and intelligence come through in her diary entries and in the remarkably lucid memorandum she pens just before her death, when she realizes the importance of giving "an exact record of what took place" so that "no one may by chance get into any trouble through me" (130). Lucy, like Ibsen's Nora Helmer, is a shrewd performer of naivety. An astute observer of character, she analyzes Dr. Seward, even as she detects him trying to analyze her as if she were one of his patients. Whereas Seward never sees beyond the frivolous femininity that he finds so enchanting, Lucy discerns the nervous personality that underlies Seward's apparent calm. She notes how he fiddles with his lancet and nearly sits on his hat as he works up the nerve to propose marriage to her. Her tears silenced his unwelcome proposal, she gaily reports to Mina, noting how his hands trembled as she wept. She ventriloquizes Quincey Morris's Americanisms, observing that he indulges in them only when he is around her and "there was no one to be shocked" (59).

Lucy is a free spirit. She enjoys using slang and doesn't mind who hears her. Though she's wealthy, she finds fashion "a bore" and dismisses "Town" as "pleasant," with barely a mention of the galleries and parks she visits (56-57). [...]  in her conversations with Dr. Seward, she analyzes the analyst. She has the audacity to admit, not only to Mina but also to her would-be husbands, that she loves a man who has not yet declared his love for her. Though she does not say that she had to "do the proposing" to Arthur Holmwood, her vague description--"all so confused"--of the meeting that settled their marriage allows for that possibility. [...]  I agree that Stoker endows Lucy with a sensuality perhaps offensive to Victorian convention, just as he endows her with intelligence and initiative, but, as I will argue, the novel works on the whole to endorse rather than condemn unconventional traits in women.

Winstead, Karen A. 2020 Mrs. Harker and Dr. Van Helsing: Dracula, Fin-de-Siecle Feminisms, and the New Wo/Man.

[sebby1986]

YAYY THANK U SM

I'm gonna struggle so hard to find 10 ppl to tag but it's ok!!! Trust.

1. Mr Green (Clue: the Movie)

2. Dracula (Dracula)

3. The Bride (Kill Bill)

4. Crowley (Good Omens)

5. George McFly (Back to the Future)

6. Madeline Ashton (Death Becomes Her)

7. Willow Ufgood (Willow)

8. Charles Carson (Downton Abbey)

9. The Joker (Batman: the Animated Series)

10. The Sergeant (Pirates of Penzance)

Not ranked by how much I like them they're all on the same level.

P.S.- sorry if I tagged you and you're like "who even is this guy??" I picked random ppl I'm following when I ran out of close friends lol

Tagging: @plasticviolence @froginajesterhat @ineffably-flynn @minecrafttortie @ellovett @little-lovett @vyvernnn @bamsara @someone-kill-the-ej @clytemokiwie

10 Characters, 10 Fandoms

Didn't reblog the original because the list was getting super long and scrolling through was like that scene from Sponge Out of Water where they travel back in time (/j). So to keep it neat, maybe make your own post like this where possible lol /nf

(Thank you for tagging me, @stargazerlillian! :D)

RULES: Make a post where you list ten of your favourite characters from ten separate fandoms, then tag ten people.

Here we go, then:

Squidward Tentacles (SpongeBob SquarePants)

Bradley Uppercrust III (An Extremely Goofy Movie)

Wheatley (Portal 2)

Daffy Duck (Looney Tunes)

Shaggy Rogers (Scooby-Doo! Where Are You?)

Matthew Corbett (The Sooty Show)

Greg Dillard (The Outlaws)

Darren Lamb (Extras)

Trixie Lulamoon (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Jon Arbuckle (Garfield and Friends)

(There's a few more characters I like, but for one point, I cannot pick between Dr Flug and Miss Heed from Villainous and I cannot put both, so they can be my "honourable mentions" - same for Phoenix Wright and the rest I can't mention because they're aren't enough slots, LOL).

Tagging: @thatofabeavers / @shookrrighteous / @madbutchkisser / @four-raccoons-in-a-trenchcoat / @softies-only

@wheatlev / @fandomloserg / @sebby1986 / @caronaro-flipaclip

[maverick-werewolf]

Daily Werewolf Thoughts - Days 1-9

I've been writing some daily werewolf thoughts in various places, and now, at last, here's a collection of them for Werewolf Wednesday! I'll be posting collections on my Patreon and Tumblr, since I don't want to spam those every day for such short posts. Here's the first set from days one through nine.

The formatting on these isn't the prettiest, but it'll do! They're not big blog posts, just thoughts for fun and stuff.

Day 1- I'm obligated to open with the undeniable importance of The Wolf Man (1941). Werewolves never had a definitive book that shaped the popular perception of werewolves. The Wolf Man, although a film, is to werewolves what Bram Stoker's Dracula is to vampires. When you think of "a werewolf," it was influenced at least in some way by The Wolf Man.

Influenced by folklore but taking elements from various sources (not just werewolf legends), Curt Siodmak created the werewolf that currently lives in our perceptions as THE werewolf. The Halloween werewolf, the classic horror werewolf... and still the coolest kind of werewolf.

Great film, by the way. You should watch it. It's free on the Internet Archive, so you have no excuse. It's still one of the best werewolf stories ever told. Classic. There's a reason everyone ripped off the formula.

Also, there's a Werewolf Fact for this: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-fact-68-the-importance-of-the-wolf-man-1941/

Day 2- There's great variety in werewolf designs out there, but I've noticed the most classic werewolf look has a body hair pattern and lacks fur on the face. Everything from Halloween masks to films to cutesy plush use this as the most immediately recognizable werewolf look, no doubt inspired by classic wolf-men like Werewolf of London (1935), The Wolf Man (1941), and Curse of the Werewolf (1961).

I went through a phase of being adamant about preferring werewolf completely covered in fur, but I realized that, even when I was a contrarian child and then teenager, my favorites never actually looked like that. Then again, I like an insane variety, to be honest, so I'm not that picky... as long as it looks like both a human and a wolf instead of neither of those things or something completely different.

Day 3- Something many modern werewolves lack, or did for a while (I think the phase is ending, puns intended), was the howl. A wolf howl is a unique and chilling sound that has haunted the psyche of man for time immemorial. It's an obvious element of werewolf horror and werewolves in general.

But sometime in the early 2010s or so, a lot of people decided that howls were "corny" and too expected because that was around the time anything classic/traditional became just terrible and everyone wanted to disassociate werewolves from... wolves. So werewolves started exclusively roaring or, at best, weirdly bellowing instead. This can be found in everything from Underworld (undoubtedly a huge influence on this) to Skyrim* to the MTV Teen Wolf series and many others. I'll never forget a pivotal scene in a late Teen Wolf season where Scott was told to howl and he just... roars. Wtf? Everything did this at the time.

Sidebar: The MTV Teen Wolf series absolutely shocked me when it first released. I watched it fully expecting it to be teen werewolf tripe, but Season 1 really is fantastic werewolf horror. Just do NOT watch any season beyond the first one. Everything past Season 1 is total garbage with only a few cool moments in like one of the season 4's (I forget all the numbers) and is much more what I expected from the series. Note that the linked clip is not from season 1.

*: just another reason why Morrowind: Bloodmoon is superior

Underworld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v-JtvyLvSlo&abchannel=Movieclips

Skyrim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXwkSA2_02o&ab_channel=Servilius

Teen Wolf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWjJME4Vl3A&ab_channel=coolghighi

Day 4- Silver. The idea of a "silver bullet" has become all but ubiquitous for something's only weakness, like saying "Achilles' heel." Obviously, this originated with werewolves... and again it actually originated only with The Wolf Man (1941). Silver was never a werewolf weakness in legend.

Curt Siodmak, when dictating to the world what werewolf concepts would be like forever after, created the idea that only silver can slay a werewolf. In legend, werewolves had no particular weaknesses, unlike vampires. They could walk holy ground, holy artifacts had no effect on them, wolfsbane and belladonna did nothing in particular, some were immune to all forms of injury (except in human form) and had to be cured, silver certainly was never mentioned, and some were slain through ordinary means.

It's possible that Siodmak got the idea of silver harming werewolves from "witch-creatures," shapeshifted witches. In some tales, witches were harmed specifically by silver. This had no relation to werewolves whatsoever. Other speculate Siodmak did this because silver is related to the moon in ancient alchemy. Regardless of why he did it, werewolves being slain by silver specifically begins with The Wolf Man in 1941.

I should note that some dispute this, citing the Beast of Gevaudan legend (which in itself I don't even really consider a werewolf legend) and claiming that silver was used to slay it, as told in Henri Pourrat’s Historie fidèle de la bête en Gévaudan. But this book is not from the time period of the Beast of Gevaudan - it's a novel published in 1946, well after The Wolf Man was released and established.

Curt Siodmak is the reason we associate werewolves with "silver bullets" (although it was a silver-headed cane that slew the werewolf in the movie), so you can thank him again for his massive influence on our culture abroad and certainly our now classic conception of the werewolf.

There's also a werewolf fact for this: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/silver/

Day 5- I love etymology. My favorite word is "werewolf." Today, it's common to see people shunning the word "werewolf," thinking it corny, or else they do so in favor of shorthand or other general word butchery or kreatyvity. Before I get into that, I'm going to go over what "werewolf" actually means.

“Werewolf” comes from late Old English, a combination of “were,” meaning “man,” and of course “wolf.” Werewolves have had countless names over the centuries, but this is the one that stuck, after its first use (that we know of, at least) by the English King Cnut, who reigned 1016-1035; he used it in his Ecclesiastical Ordinances XXVI. By the way, please ignore any modern scholars who like to claim now that "werewolf" means "wolfwolf," because that is so preposterous it makes me want to cast myself into the sea with stones on my feet.

Unfortunately, a lot of people like to avoid even using the word "werewolf" as if their success depends on it. They have what is obviously a werewolf in a story, but it's very carefully never referred to as such, because then - in their minds - audiences wouldn't take it seriously. Thus, we end up with things like "lycan," a butchery of "lycanthrope" that takes the "lykos" (meaning wolf) and only the beginning of the "anthropos" (meaning man). You end up with a nothing word that sounds like something green growing on a log. Many people also use only the "were" prefix, which means "man," and thus you have things like "weretouched" (Mantouched? How does it even imply shapeshifting?) to mean a variety of beast-people*. Still others use a word they made up just so they never have to say "werewolf," like "worgen" or "blutbad/blutbaden" or even just "wolfblood/wolfbloods," among others. These may or may not be used in a world that otherwise uses normal terms; if it does use other ordinary monster names, it makes the kreatyv werewolf name all the sillier-sounding.

Anyway, "werewolf" is a great word. More people should use it. A rose by any other name...

*: I won't get into how I feel about "werecreatures" being a bunch of werewolf spinoffs, although I may end up ranting about that sometime this month.

Day 6- Werewolves and the full moon always go together. A werewolf without a full moon just doesn't have quite the same ring to it. This is, you guessed it, yet another thing you can thank Curt Siodmak for - but it actually didn't originate with The Wolf Man (1941), and it also has some basis in legend. Or, at least, I would argue it does.

Firstly, The Wolf Man (1941) actually didn't start the idea of a werewolf transforming at the full moon. In the original film, we have this werewolf rhyme (written by Siodmak)...

"Even a man who is pure at heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms

And the autumn moon is bright"

Hence, the werewolf turns in autumn when the wolfsbane blooms.

However, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Siodmak changed the rhyme and the timing of the werewolf's transformation...

"Even a man who is pure at heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms

And the moon is full and bright"

So, now it's every full moon.

I've seen some scholars argue there is no basis in folklore for the full moon werewolf myth, but I dispute that. Sabine Baring-Gould specifically mentions in The Book of Werewolves (you can buy a fully edited, translated, formatted, and footnoted copy of that by yours truly, btw) that many southern regions of France believed werewolf turned on the full moon even well into the 1800s. He mentions that "men transformed into wolves at the full moon. The desire to run comes upon them at night."

Likewise, there's a potential moon connection as far back as Niceros's tale, as retold by Petronius in The Satyricon, though it exists in other and older forms told by other writers. It's an oft-cited werewolf story that mentions "the Moon shone brought as day" when a man turns into a wolf, though there's no obvious description of the moonlight itself being some kind of trigger or necessity for the magic. It did, however, let Niceros witness the transformation and become mentally scarred by it.

That was lengthy. Anyway, I love the full moon and werewolves. I also love werewolves and silver, even if that wasn't in folklore, but Baring-Gould alone does tell me that I think there was indeed basis in folklore for the connection between werewolves and the full moon.

Also, there's a Werewolf Fact for this, if old and not the best written: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/full-moon/

Day 7- What do you think of as the "typical werewolf color?" It might not necessarily be your favorite, but it's the one that stands out in your mind as the werewolf color - although I love them all, so obviously this doesn't apply to me.

I think brown. Sometimes grey.

Throughout my childhood, wolf-man style werewolves were usually brown and the wolf-headed ones were more likely to be grey. There were and are exceptions, of course. But even today, you're still most likely to see brown or grey, including in Halloween decorations, even if there's more variance in designs today (and you're more likely to find wolf-headed ones than you were in the past).

Day 8- One of the weirdest misconceptions I’ve run across in my life of werewolf obsession is this idea that “we need woman werewolves in media, we’ve never had many and they weren’t in the legends.” That couldn’t be less true. There have always been female werewolves in both. It's much safer today to assume the werewolf of a murder mystery will be the woman, as that's the new "twist." I'm much more shocked if it's ever the man anymore (it isn't). Werewolf women have been common even in early film, though the most popular examples begin around the 2000's. In fact, you could easily argue the first werewolf film (though it was about a witch turning into a werewolf) ever recorded in 1913 was about a female werewolf. It's lost to time now, though.

There were plenty of werewolf women in legend, too. I have a werewolf fact for that: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/werewolf-women/ (my personal favorite has always been the 1615 treatise by Jean de Nynauld, for some reason)

There's a lot more to say, but short post today since I have a lot of work to do. See you again tomorrow!

(in the original version of this post, I had 4 images, all of female werewolves from film, including Cursed, Ginger Snaps, The Howling, and Skinwalkers, though I could pull plenty more examples)

Day 9- Something I discuss a lot in The Werewolf: Past and Future is the point when werewolves "went mad," essentially. In pop culture, all the best werewolves are mad/uncontrollable at least for the most part, as inspired by The Wolf Man. It's a much better story and what makes a werewolf a werewolf in modern perceptions (including mine; those are the best werewolves). But it wasn't always the case in the legends.

Sure, there are several legends in previous time periods of mad werewolves (such as Sigmund and Sinfjotli, among others), but you'll remarkably find the majority had full control of the bestial form. This was especially common in older Christian works, such as about werewolf knights, in which being a werewolf was a test of the judgment of others or a test of one's own will. This also wasn't uncommon in ancient Greece and even Rome, such as the Arcadians taking the form of a wolf and returning to human form as long as they didn't devour any human flesh.

It was only in the Renaissance and/or Early Modern Period, with the rise of science and the popularity of slaughtering wolves (real ones), that werewolves became seen as these uncontrollable, evil, insane killers who were "diseased." In the past, being a werewolf was a magic curse. Then, it became a madness and an illness - called "lycanthropy." Some say Christianity caused this, when in actuality, it was secular divisions and the rise of scientific thought, as proven by older Christian werewolf works.

I have several werewolf facts on this subject, and I discuss it a lot in my book, too.

Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1949227022

Post 1: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/curse-not-disease/

Post 2: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/when-werewolves-went-mad/